


Satisfaction (Feels Like A Distant Memory)

by Magpiie



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21651418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magpiie/pseuds/Magpiie
Summary: Laura Moon used to brush off affection as if she barely noticed it. Sometimes, you don't know what you've got until it's gone.
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	Satisfaction (Feels Like A Distant Memory)

**Author's Note:**

> "I go crazy 'cause here isn't where I wanna be  
> And satisfaction feels like a distant memory  
> And I can't help myself, all I  
> Wanna hear her say is "Are you mine?"  
> Well, are you mine?"  
> \- R U Mine?, Arctic Monkeys
> 
> Special thanks to TheBlackestFrost for taking this little bit of an idea and running with it. Couldn't ask for a better co-writer!

"Oh, go fuck yourself," Laura mutters, tired of arguing, and Sweeney glowers at her for a moment before pushing his seat back.

"Nah," he spits out, draining the last of his rum and coke and slamming the empty glass down on the table between them. "Think I'll find someone else to do it for me."

She doesn't turn to watch him walk away, just sits and seethes as she lights up a cigarette. There's a good run of minutes where she's able to ignore him, but then she finds herself semi-consciously glancing around for him, and when her eyes settle on him talking to some girl by the cute vintage jukebox a pang of annoyance shoots through her and suddenly, she can't look away. He towers over this stranger - pale, brunette, maybe not prettier than her but absolutely less dead - and when he leans down to murmur something to her, Laura can see her hair move under his breath. 

It's something she might never feel again, and this other girl laughs and rolls her eyes as if she has no idea how lucky she is to feel anything. Bitch. 

The ache in her chest makes her want to flip the fucking table, calling this anything other than jealousy is a lie, and the realisation compounds the anger she's already feeling.

His smirk is sickening, flirtatious but dark, and Laura wonders how this girl hasn't told him to beat it by now. The stranger's laugh bubbles through the bar at whatever he had said next, loud enough for Laura to hear, and she raises a hand to slap him playfully on the chest, and Laura notices a victorious little grin flash across his face for just a moment. Ugh. Gross. She waits for him to shoot that grin her way, to prove his point so she can roll her eyes and shake her head, but he doesn't. 

The thought that he's genuinely more interested in this other woman than her own validation makes Laura swallow the dry nothingness in her throat and draw another harsh drag from her cigarette. She wishes she could feel it burn it's way down, feel her lungs raw and grated by the smoke, but instead it's largely performative and she hates it. 

Finally Sweeney's eyes slide from his new friend's eyes, locking on to hers as he lifts a hand to trail his fingertips in soft little patterns over the exposed skin of the girl's shoulder. 

Experimentally, slowly, as if she doesn't want to acknowledge that she's even doing it, Laura mimics the action on her own arm. She's frustrated - but not surprised - to learn that she can barely feel it at all. The other girl rocks up onto her tiptoes to say something in his ear and it's his turn to laugh, and then press a bold kiss against her cheek. Laura bets it's warm and soft, with the hint of a scratch from his beard, and her hand moves to her cheek to check her own feeling. Nothing. 

Part of her wants to march over and tell this stranger to fuck off, find some other idiot to climb, that she doesn't want to hear them going at it all night. But something keeps her pinned to her seat, watching them with a furrowed brow and a nearly-done cigarette.

Sweeney's hand slides to this girl's hip and she leans into the touch. Maybe if Laura were still anything like that girl, alive instead of numb, she would be able feel her heart beat faster and her breaths get short. She'd feel her skin prickle and that low hum in her veins that would eventually spread low, a throbbing ache calling for more contact, a craving that spreads, seeking stimulation. 

But she doesn't feel anything - just a dull anger. When his hand finds the hem of his girl's dress and toys with it, knuckles brushing her skin, Laura's barely even aware of her own hand shadowing his actions. The dead nerves under her skin give no response to the touch but she continues on, desperate to feel even the palest ghost of what this other girl feels, copying him as he moves to just briefly touch the skin of her inner thigh, then settle his big hand around this girl's little waist. 

His hand stills and Laura's sure he's saying something to her and she glances up to see if she can decipher what it is, but she finds that she's wrong. The girl is slipping her hands under his denim jacket and saying something in his ear, but he's staring straight ahead, over her shoulder.

When their eyes meet, Laura's annoyance turns to panic because she knows, she fucking knows that her face is open and the longing must be palpable and his smugness turns into… something else. Surprise? Confusion? Curiosity? His hand runs slowly up this girl's side so that Laura knows his stupid rough palm is just brushing her breast and - hating herself - she very subtly moves her hand to mirror his. 

Perhaps it's her mind playing tricks on her in her addled desperation to feel anything but sick and empty, but she thinks she can almost feel it. A rough warmth, an uncharacteristic tenderness, a stolen caress in the noise and darkness of some bar.

She doesn't even realise she's made a sound but her mouth has slipped open and something quiet and filled with longing has whispered up to her ears. 

He stops then, though there's no way he could have heard her, and takes a step back from his companion. The girl steps forward to him, thinking this is part of the game, but he shakes his head, murmurs something and moves away, her shocked expression following him. 

Laura stares as he returns to the table, and realises too late that her hands are still resting against her ribcage. 

Neither speaks for a moment but she is acutely aware of him watching her, studying her, and she fights the urge to hit him. 

"I'd miss it."

She imagines being alive and free and finding him in a bar and fucking him in a bathroom and feeling every rough, warm second of it. 

"I don't need your fucking pity."

"Course you fucking don't." 

She is quiet for a moment before turning to him. 

"You know those people who lose a limb, still feeling to itch and ache and react? I get that...the memory of touch, like remembering the taste of ice-cream on a hot summer day. There, but not really."

She doesn't say the rest, doesn't say that the absence of it is excruciating because she has never wanted to feel before, and now she can't. She doesn't say the absence is agony. 

She doesn't say it. Doesn't need to. 

He finishes his drink and sighs. "Fuck it."

He wraps an arm around her waist, the other hand cupping her jaw and he kisses her, slow and hard and deep, lazy like he's got all the time in the world for this. 

Something familiar and foreign curls in her chest and she swears she can feel the scratch of his beard, the warmth of his mouth, soft dry lips. 

Her hands have a mind of their own, gripping his jacket to pull him closer, feeling herself hauled against him as his fingers tangle in her hair. 

If she gets close enough, maybe she'll taste him. 

Something jostles them, a body pushing past, and the spell is broken. 

Laura catches sight of the girl from the jukebox glaring at her, and would laugh if not for the fact that she swears her lips are tingling as if from pressure. As if the scratch of beard and heat of a warm mouth are accessible to her. 

He's watching her, still holding her against him, and she catalogues his size, breadth, wonders what he would smell like if her olfactory system worked.

"Anything?" He's good: she can barely hear the hope in his voice, and she thinks for a minute that maybe honesty wouldn't be so bad. 

But old habits die hard so she shakes her head, her voice light and mocking. 

"Nope! Could be you're just really bad at that..." she pauses as if thinking. "Or that I'm dead. Realistically a combination makes sense."

Something flashes behind his eyes then, gone too quickly to name, but she knows that feeling goes two ways and just because her path has barriers doesn't mean his does. 

He's releasing her to roll his eyes and she tells herself she doesn't care about the loss of contact, of being close to him.

"Fair enough, can't say the taste of vomit is to my liking - but then, I've never been one for necrophilia."

He heads to the bathroom and doesn't see her running her fingers over her lips, feeling the ghost of touch and maybe, somewhere very deep down in the recesses of hope she rarely looks at, a promise.


End file.
